Waukesha residents in a few years will be able to drink from tap water that is free from the radium that experts say has contaminated the existing supply, but it's going to come with a steep price tag.

Utility rate payers have already spent about $5 million on the city's decade-long quest to draw water from Lake Michigan. Under the proposal, it's estimated that water utility rates could increase as much as two to three times the current rate, Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly said Wednesday at a celebratory event with Gov. Scott Walker and other municipal leaders.

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Water costs for the average Waukesha home around about $230, Reilly said. That price could skyrocket to $900 with the diversion.

"This is not a political issue. This is a public health issue," Walker said of Tuesday's vote by a Great Lakes governing body.

Waukesha, a city of about 70,000 people about 17 miles from Lake Michigan, lies just outside the Great Lakes watershed and needed a waiver to get around regulations put in place with the 2008 Great Lakes Compact.

The plan that was approved on Tuesday allows the western suburb to draw up to 8.2 million gallons per day from the planet's third-largest body of freshwater. Waukesha plans to buy its water from Oak Creek and return nearly 100 percent it, after treatment, to the lake via the Root River.

City officials estimate that it will be four or five years before the system is complete and Waukesha residents start receiving their drinking water from Lake Michigan.

Reilly said the city will being hiring engineering consultants to "guide the project" immediately.

Racine Mayor John Dickert is angry about the decision because the used water will flow to the lake through his city. He said it would devastate Racine's tourism industry if beaches have to close because they're unsafe.